From CFO at conf call ::
In 2017 we began to focus on increasing the velocity of production at all our business units with a goal of returning the company to profitability, reducing past backlogs and decreasing inventories. Simultaneously, the company began a costs reduction program. In conjunction with the winding down of the era of sequestration, the company began to see a rise in both revenue and backlog.
However, as part of examining the company’s ability to return to profitability we recognize by the beginning of the fourth quarter that in an effort to drive revenue, we were not optimally aligned with our customers’ needs. Ultimately in my evaluation of the business, I concluded that we needed to realign production schedules to better serve our customers.
I’ll give you an example of this. We took on -- in late 2015 enter 2016, we took on five F-35 parts for one of our largest customers, that a competitor of ours was not delivering on, for whatever reason. With great effort and persistence, we have shipped four of those five parts and the last one is due to ship in the next three weeks, this required a battery schedule of the shop floor in the late fourth quarter.
In addition and this realignment of production schedules resulted in a one-time hit to revenue in the fourth quarter. In addition in the fourth quarter, we took the strategic position to refocus the management and the resources of Air Industries on its Complex Machining products, for aircraft landing gear and jet engine turbine applications. This culminated in the announced sale of WMI on March 21, 2018 for approximately $9 million in cash. We anticipate closing this transaction by the end of May.
